


Keep Your Aim Locked

by findyourstars



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Clexa, Eventual relationship, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Lexa is bad at emotions, Reunion Fic, Sometimes Clarke is the one that needs healing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-02 18:59:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4070983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/findyourstars/pseuds/findyourstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place immediately after the end of Season 2.</p><p>Clarke doesn't want to see Lexa. But Lexa is the only one who can understand the feeling of this much blood on her hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Everybody's Waiting for You To Break Down

As Clark turns her back on Bellamy and Camp Jaha, the wind picks up and brings his whispered words to her. “May we meet again.”

She buries these words deep in her heart as the wind whips her curls from her shoulders and makes her feel like she could spread her arms and take flight. If only she could hold onto this sense of freedom, of reckless abandon. 

She makes it to the treeline without looking back at Bellamy, thank the gods. Her heart is set, but she doesn’t want to see the loss in his eyes. Bellamy will be all right. He has proven himself to be a good leader, and she feels no guilt leaving her people in his hands.

(Well, she feels a little guilt, but it’s swallowed by the tension gripping her muscles and the seeds of panic hiding in corners of her mind.)

Her mother will be angry, Clarke admits to herself as she hikes through the familiar woods surrounding Camp Jaha. But her mother is finally safe, and she too will be a fine leader without Clarke around to cause problems. She allows the images to flit through her mind: Jasper, Monroe, Miller, Monty, Octavia, Raven. They will all be better off without the toxin that Clarke Griffin has become.

(She pushes away concern for Raven and Octavia in particular. But Raven will heal, and Octavia is fierce. Bellamy will take care of them both.)

After these images, her thoughts fall to stillness, and Clarke lets her surroundings fill her senses. Twigs snap beneath her boots, but she isn’t trying to be quiet. No one will look for her, not yet, and when they do she will be gone.

After a few hours of walking, the young trees around the fallen Ark give way to an older, deeper forest that Clarke hasn’t seen since their earliest days on Earth, when she and Bellamy and Finn (her mind clamps down hard on memories of Finn, she doesn’t need that right now) had gone hunting or scouting. She must be within walking distance of the dropship; her feet had led her down a familiar path without her realizing.

She goes out of her way to avoid the dropship. Another thing to run from.

Night falls, and when she can no longer see the ground beneath her feet Clarke reluctantly stops and busies herself dragging fallen branches together to form a lean-to. She drinks from her canteen, but not too deeply, because she only has so many supplies for now.

She settles herself into her make-shift shelter to sleep, but her mind will not quiet. The air around her is too thick, too still, too much like the air in the mess hall at Mount Weather.

Her stomach clenches and Clarke pulls herself from her lean-to to vomit, eyes watering as she chokes until nothing but bile comes up. She doesn’t realize she’s crying until the tears begin to drip from her cheeks, and then she cannot stop, sobbing until she cannot breathe with the strength of her sorrow.

She cries until she feels emptiness, and then she sleeps.

—

Clarke walks aimlessly for the next several days, changing direction whenever she sees something familiar. She hasn’t seen the sea yet, but she finds a pass and makes it to the other side of the mountains, where the rain shadow changes the plant life noticeably. The most dangerous things she has crossed paths with are biting flies, which have started to swarm as her altitude drops, but it has been a remarkably quiet trip.

Her physical stamina, however, is flagging dramatically. She doesn’t sleep much, and she has started having flashbacks of Mount Weather that are so vivid and dramatic they leave her vomiting and shaking. Her inability to keep down food and water are affecting her fitness, and as the days pass she travels less and less distance.

It’s been nine days since she first struck out on her own, and as she wades through the fifth swamp she’s seen, she stumbles and falls, going down hard into the murky swamp water. Two days ago she spiked a fever, and her lips are chapped and peeling. The flies buzz incessantly around her as she spits out mud and grit and struggles to her feet again. She begins to wonder if she will die out here, as penance for her sins.

She hasn’t seen Finn since the funeral pyre at Tondc, but today he is back. The hallucination lurks at the corners of her vision and disappears when she tries to look at it straight on, but she can feel him there.

“Have you come for me, then?” Clarke mutters out loud, her voice raspy from disuse. “Are you going going to take me?”

Maybe she would get to see her father again, she realized, with her first flicker of interest in days. Maybe if she died they would be together. And she’d get to see Finn, and Wells, and Charlotte, and Fox, and all the rest of her people who hadn’t made it.

(Sometimes Clarke wished she hadn’t made it.)

Her vision is shaky, and she stumbles again, landing on solid ground and scraping skin from her hands and forearms. But this time she doesn’t get up.

“I’m tired of fighting, Finn,” Clarke breathes. “I’m so, so tired.”

She doesn’t know how long she lies there in the dirt, half-conscious, when she registers movement in the woods. The idea of being eaten alive by some sort of wild animal sends a tiny spike of fear through her heart, and she finds it within herself to struggle to a kneeling position.

She knows she can’t run. But maybe she can crawl out of view and the animal will pass her by. Before she can gather the energy to do so, however, two figures emerge from the trees, bows pointed at her. The shorter man barks orders to his companion, who advances, arrow nocked and ready to shoot. But then the taller man stops and lowers his weapon.

“Clarke?” He asks, his voice deep. “Clarke _kom skaikru_?”

Her breath leaves her in a whoosh of relief, and she tries to struggle to her feet. The Grounder rushes forward to catch her arm.

“ _Em laik Clarke kom skaikru!_ ” He snaps back at his companion, who lowers his weapon reluctantly. Clarke slumps into the man’s side, too spent to care what this means, or what comes next. The men bicker back and forth briefly, but Clarke is fading out of consciousness again, and the only word she catches before blacking out is _Heda_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic and chapter titles are from the song "Eyes Open" by Taylor Swift, which is such a Clarke song it physically pains me.


	2. Everybody's Watching To See The Fallout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke finds herself in Polis, and runs into a familiar face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for your feedback on the first chapter! This is my first 100 fic (and I literally just finished the series like four days ago) and I'm really enjoying getting to play with a new set of characters.
> 
> That being said, I'm trying my best with the Trigedasleng! The information online is fairly thorough, but I feel like I'm having to learn a new language to write dialogue. If you're a purist, please don't judge me too hard, haha. Translations for key phrases will be at the end of the chapter.

Clarke returns to consciousness slowly, with bursts of lucidity interspersed throughout shallow sleep and fever-dreams.

The first time she is the most aware of her surroundings, she finds herself on a cot in a small room with many windows. The fading natural light illuminates the face of the man sponging water onto her face.

It’s Nyko, Clarke realizes fuzzily, the healer from Woods Clan. She tries to say his name, but her lips are so dry that moving them makes them crack and bleed.

Nyko seems to realize her struggle and helps her sit up enough to press a cup to her lips. “Drink,” he says, and Clarke obeys. The water is cool and sweet, and she closes her eyes in relief as it soothes her parched throat.

The bearded Grounder lays her slowly back down on the cot and continues ministering to her. “You’re a healer,” he says, half to himself. “You should know better than to be in the swamps without protection. The flies carry all sorts of disease.”

Clarke just closes her eyes and drifts back to sleep.

The next time she resurfaces, Nyko is standing by the door, arguing with a lithe woman dressed in armor. Clarke hears her own name spoken, as well as _skaikru_ and _Heda_ again, but her Trigedasleng is very limited, and their voices are soft.

Nyko continues to wake her periodically to feed her water and broth, as well as a thick brown syrup that tastes a little like the seaweed concoction Clarke had used as an antibiotic. She accepts them wordlessly. Nyko often speaks to her, sometimes in Trigedasleng, and she gets the impression that it’s more for his benefit than for hers.

Once, he mentions her dreams.

“You moan in your sleep,” he says to her, trying to get her to drink more water. She pushes the cup away and rolls so her back is to him. He clicks his tongue and mutters something under his breath, then leaves her be.

Eventually, she wakes alone and clear-headed, feeling weak but far more alive than she had in the three days before her collapse. Carefully she pushes back the thick blankets covering her and swings her legs over the edge, testing her body’s responses to these simple movements. Her arms tremble a little bit as she braces them against the cot, but they hold, and Clarke takes a moment to breathe. As a healer, she knows the danger of rushing through recovery.

As if summoned by her movements, Nyko enters the room. He stops, and she thinks she can see his lips twitch into a brief smile.

“You’re awake,” he says, and moves to bring her some water. Clarke accepts the ladle and sips deeply.

“How long was I out for?” She asks, her voice raspy and weak.

“Three days,” Nyko answers. “You had acquired a type of Swamp Fever, but you were severely dehydrated when Otan and Timore found you, which slowed your recovery.”

Clarke squeezes her eyes shut briefly as pain begins to throb behind her temples. “Where am I, Nyko?”

He looks surprised. “Polis. Were you not coming to find us?”

Clarke shakes her head. “I wasn’t trying to find anyone.”

Nyko huffs, amused. “Well then the gods have smiled on you today, Clarke _kom skaikru_. You are lucky to be alive.”

Her chest tightens, and Clarke looks away. “Right. Lucky.” _Or something._

Nyko seems to sense the change in her demeanor and takes the water back from her. “Once you’ve grown stronger, you may meet with the Commander. I know she will be pleased that you survived the attack at Mount Weather.”

Clarke clenches her fingers around the blankets, feeling the coarse fibers press painfully into her palms. “I doubt that, Nyko. But thank you for saying so.”

Nyko pauses, clearly confused. “I will be back to check on you later. Please, rest. Your body has a lot of recovering still to do.”

Clarke just nods at him and sinks back onto the cot, eyes already closing again.

She spends most of this day and the next sleeping, but when awake she forces herself to walk slow lines across the stone floors. She continues trying to drink and eat, but her stomach is still too weak to hold down anything more complicated than broth. Nyko is like a second shadow, to the point where she snaps at him and asks if he has any other patients to attend to. He just shrugs.

She has a sneaking suspicion that this is Lexa’s doing.

Five days she has been at Polis now, and Nyko decides that they will go for a walk. He leads her from her small antechamber, hand on her elbow until she shrugs him off. They make slow progress through the halls of what she learns is the healing complex, which is strangely empty. The building is made of stone and mortar, with windows angled to let in as much natural light as possible. They see few others on their walk, but when Clarke leans on a doorway to catch her breath, she spots the woman she had seen arguing with Nyko coming out of a nearby room. The Grounder narrows her eyes at the pair of them and stalks away.

“Who’s that?” Clarke asks, steeling herself to continue. She feels as unsteady as the young deer they’ve seen on Earth, and her legs tremble maddeningly beneath her. Nyko subtly catches her forearm and turns her back in the direction they came from.

“Eyla,” he replies, but offers no other explanation.

The next day she pushes herself to walk even further, and when Nyko brings her back to her room she collapses on the cot, spent.

“Why am I so weak?” She sighs, though she knows the answer. Malnourishment and dehydration, coupled with fever. Nyko has brought her clean clothes since she has arrived at Polis, but they hang from her frame like she is nothing more than bones.

Nyko doesn’t respond, and she looks up, curious, to see him standing stiffly at attention. “ _Heda_ ,” he says, glancing quickly over at Clarke with his eyes flashing. Clarke struggles back to a seated position, heart racing.

Lexa hovers in the door like an avenging angel, eyes dark and framed by copper-colored paint swirled into an unfamiliar design. Her braided curls are pulled back with a scrap of black fabric, and she wears worn leather embroidered with delicate silver patterns. She looks as fierce as Clarke remembers, yet there is a softness around her eyes that was absent from the battlefield.

“Lexa,” Clarke breathes, the word like a prayer. Lexa’s gaze lingers on Clarke’s face, then snaps towards Nyko.

“ _Em don gon raun_ ,” Nyko says gruffly. 

“ _Sha, dison laik gona_ ,” Lexa snaps back. “ _Em ste yuj_.”

“ _Sha, Heda_.”

(Clarke wishes fervently that she had asked Octavia to teach her Trigedasleng.)

Lexa nods her head, seemingly satisfied. “ _Yu gon we en yu hod op ouder_.”

Nyko bows his head briefly and vacates the room, leaving Lexa alone with Clarke. Clarke is trying very hard to breathe normally, but her head is spinning and her lungs can’t seem to get enough oxygen.

Lexa watches her for a long moment, eyes shrewd. “How are you feeling, Clarke?”

Her tone is even, neutral, and Clarke forces herself to match the warrior’s gaze. “Better,” she says, her voice equally flat. “Thanks to Nyko.”

Lexa nods once. “He is a very skilled healer, though not so much as you, I hear.”

Clarke ignores the subtle compliment and swallows resolutely. She knows she doesn’t look remotely intimidating at the moment, but she has to try if she’s going to hold her ground against Lexa. “We got our people out of Mount Weather, in the end.”

Lexa arches one graceful eyebrow. “Is that what you wish to talk about right now, while you’re still healing?”

Clarke laughs, a short, choked sound. “No, I don’t. But I didn’t know if you knew.” _Or cared_ , she adds mentally, cruelly.

“I knew.” Lexa’s expression remains neutral, but Clarke can see her eyes tightening. “I was not surprised. You lead an army of mighty warriors.”

Clarke doesn’t have a response to that, and she lets her gaze fall to her lap, suddenly exhausted and wanting nothing more than to be alone. 

She hears Lexa shift her weight, the leather whispering in the gulf of silence between them. “I will leave you to rest, Clarke. But I am pleased that you made it to Polis, and I hope you will stay for a little while.”

Clarke nods, eyes still lowered, and she hears Lexa leave the room and speak with Nyko, who was waiting in the corridor. Lexa’s words are short and clipped; she sounds displeased, or frustrated. Nyko’s replies are quiet and deferential. Their conversation is brief, then Lexa’s heels click down the hallway.

Clarke leans back against the wall behind her bed, eyes squeezed shut against a rising wave of multifarious emotions. When she’d woken and Nyko had told her she was in Polis, she’d known that she would have to see Lexa again. One didn’t just drop into the Commander’s domain without getting a visit. And a week ago, Clarke would have said how she would have reacted to Lexa: with anger and hurt, and a refusal for forgiveness.

But now, being here in her city, being tended by her people, she finds it hard to wish them all dead - a distinct possibility if they hadn’t won the war against the Mountain. And Clarke herself has done horrific things in the defense of her own. How can she judge Lexa for crimes that she herself had committed?

Head spinning, Clarke opens her eyes as Nyko reenters the room. He doesn’t say anything, but Clarke imagines that he’s curious.

“Thank you, Nyko,” she says as he gives her more water, trying to communicate with her eyes that she’s talking about more than just the tin cup in her hands. He shrugs.

“ _Pro_ ,” he says, and Clarke looks at him. A tiny smile is crinkling at the corners of his eyes. “You’re welcome.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Em don gon raun." = She (has) fought.  
> "Sha, dison laik gona." = Yes, this one is a warrior.  
> "Em ste yuj." = She is strong.  
> "Sha, Heda." = Yes, Commander.  
> "Yu gon we en yu hod op ouder." = Leave and wait outside.  
> "Pro." = You're welcome.


	3. Keep Your Feet Ready

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: very brief mention of suicidal ideation

Clarke appreciates Nyko’s ministrations and tries to remember that he’s hovering under orders, but as her recovery progresses she quickly tires of the walls of the medical compound. And with a little wheedling, Nyko agrees to let her wander Polis.

“But you will be accompanied at all times,” he insists, “and you are to stay out of the public eye.”

“So how am I supposed to lie low if I have a warrior trailing me?” Clarke retorts.

Nyko has an answer prepared. “Your guard will rotate on odd days, and they know how to blend.”

She understands, or tries to. The alliance was broken when Lexa made the deal with Mount Weather, and Clarke has no protection as a member of the Skaikru. Both the Sky People and the Grounders are still recovering from the War-That-Never-Was, and there seems to be a tentative peace between the two camps, but Clarke has seen enough in her time on Earth to know that peace will not hold without a considerable amount of effort.

But she is no longer the leader of the Sky People, and the pressure of the sole protector of her people no longer hangs heavy in her chest. Many of the residents of Polis have never been beyond the cliffs, and they know nothing about Clarke Griffin beyond her name. They don’t know what she looks like, or that she has laid recovering in their medical ward for the last several days. She can be anonymous here: something she has never experienced, as the daughter of Ark Royalty.

Clarke gives Nyko a shrug. “Okay.”

Her guard for today is a fair-haired Grounder named Lynk, and true to Nyko’s word he stays largely out of sight, giving her the freedom and peace to wander the city at her will. She is anxious at first and keeps to the shadows, but as the day progresses she finds that she is not the only light-haired resident of Polis, and if she walks with confidence no one spares her a second glance.

(One of her mother’s first lessons to her: fake it until you make it.)

Polis is built on an odd blend of terrain where the forest gives way to field, and then to the sand and rock of the cliffs overlooking the ocean. The city looks like it is part of the cliffs themselves; it is built from the same rough and sturdy rock speckled by the salt of the ocean, and by time. Clarke finds herself spending more time admiring architecture than walking around, and after a day or so she asks Nyko for some drawing materials.

She hasn’t really drawn for pleasure since leaving the Ark, and the charcoal feels thick and heavy in her hands at first. But there is a fountain square that she has been dying to draw, and as afternoon comes and the mid-day bustle of the city slows, Clarke seats herself on the back steps of the building housing weapons merchants and begins to sketch.

Her guard has rotated, replacing Lynk with a solidly-built woman called Oma who watches Clarke sketch with an expression like faint amusement before seating herself on a rock a few meters away to clean her weapons.

The sun creeps lower, and her hands are now thoroughly smeared with charcoal. Clarke takes a moment to dash a strand of hair from her face and glances up absently to locate Oma. To her surprise, the woman has disappeared. Clarke looks around, the beginnings of panic beginning to flutter in her stomach, and is about to retreat to her room in the medical compound when someone sits down on the step beside her.

“I dismissed Oma.” Lexa wears a maroon tunic with a leather vest strapped across her chest by silver buckles and dangling ties. Her breeches are tucked into scuffed boots that have clearly seen many miles. Clarke can’t see any weapons on her.

“Why?” She blurts out, her mind racing to understand the casual ease with which Lexa is lounging against the stone steps.

Lexa flicks her a glance, brows slightly furrowed. “Because you are with me, and need no other protection.”

“Oh.”

Lexa takes the sketchpad from her lap and looks it over for a long moment. “This is fine work, Clarke,” she says. “I didn’t know you were an artist.”

Something deep within her recognizes the compliment, and glows, but she buries it deeper. “Sometimes.”

“I would enlist your talent for a piece in my palace, if you like.”

Clarke looks up, startled. “I — I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, Lexa.”

Lexa nods, unfazed. “Fair enough. Nyko informed me that you arrived in our city by accident. To where were you journeying?”

“Anywhere. Anywhere far away,” Clarke says, surprisingly herself with the bitterness in her tone. Lexa’s expression remains neutral, but she nods again.

“I heard that you defeated the _Maunon_ , the Mountain Men. My spies said the battle was over quickly.”

Clarke has been trying to keep a rein on the feelings battling with her rational mind, but Lexa’s cool tone springs some latch and sets free all of the rage and hurt that has been growing in her chest like a tumor since the events at Mount Weather not even three weeks ago. She wants to run until her legs give out, she wants to strike Lexa across the face and make her feel a portion of the pain that fizzes beneath her skin. She wants to throw herself off the cliffs of Polis to end these tides of guilt that threaten to drag her to madness.

But she says nothing at first. Her fingernails dig into her palms until she feels the skin part beneath the force of her grief. “It wasn’t a battle,” she bites out finally, the words burning her tongue. “It was genocide.”

She looks up to see the first, faint flicker of emotion on Lexa’s face: surprise, then grudging interest. “You don’t have to speak of it if you do not want, Clarke. I am sorry for your losses.”

She misunderstands, and Clarke lets out a broken laugh that sounds more like the beginnings of a sob. “We hardly lost anyone. Not compared to them.”

Lexa looks confused now. “Well…I would congratulate you on your victory, then.” Her tone is cautious, and it’s too much for Clarke. She lurches from the step and moves at a fast walk away from the fountain square, away from Lexa and her questioning eyes and her stupid drawing that she wants to rip all to shreds. The fountain burbles behind her, swallowing Lexa’s footsteps until she has matched her pace to Clarke’s.

“Walk with me, Clarke,” she says, and catches her left wrist. Clarke makes as if to pull away, but Lexa’s expression has changed to something softer, and curiosity swells over the other, heavier emotions weighing in her mind. She stops walking, and Lexa leads her in the other direction, away from the marketplace and the medical ward, down streets that Clarke hasn’t seen in her cautious wanderings. They see a handful of citizens along the way, who dip their heads and place their fists to their chests with a whispered “ _Heda_ ,” who Lexa acknowledges with a brief nod but continues to lead Clarke by her wrist like a child.

“Where are we going?” Clarke finally asks, after they’ve left the parts of the city that she is more than passingly familiar with. They seem to have exited the city proper and entered what the word “suburbs” brings to mind, although Clarke cannot remember what Earth Skills course that concept came from. Structures are fewer in number, and the sandy soil of the Polis streets has given way to dirt and grass. Lexa leads her to what looks like a deer trail that pitches steeply downhill, away from the city, and releases her arm.

“To the ocean,” she answers, and begins down the trail without waiting to see if Clarke will follow. 

They reach the base of the cliffs after a few minutes of walking, and when Clarke looks up from the rocks she’s been tripping over she stops dead in her tracks. Stretched in front of her like a shimmering quilt of aqua and silver is the largest expanse of water she has ever seen.

Lexa lets out a huff of amusement from her side. “Have you ever seen water like this before, Clarke?”

She shakes her head slowly. “The river between our territories was big for me. There weren’t exactly oceans on the Ark.”

She turns to see Lexa smiling: a gentle, mischievous expression that makes her feel warm. “So you don’t know how to swim, then?”

Clarke chokes on a laugh and takes a step back from Lexa. “What, are you going to throw me in?”

Lexa’s smile widens. “Maybe,” she teases, and grabs Clarke by the wrist again before taking off at a run towards the waves. Clarke jogs behind her, smiling in spite of herself, because here in this fleeting moment she feels young and free, as the sand kicks up against her legs like snow and Lexa’s braids whip out behind her.

They skid to a stop at the edge of the water, and Clarke steps back so as not to ruin her boots. Lexa, meanwhile, is kicking hers off and gestures for Clarke to do the same. Once she’s barefoot, Clarke creeps hesitantly forward until the waves ebb up around her toes, and she gasps.

Lexa joins her. “I’m not going to throw you in,” she says, amending her earlier statement. “I just wanted you to see this.”

Clarke glances over to see Lexa’s expression tightening again, closing off emotion like an airlock to the outside. A wave of something like loneliness sweeps over her, and she retreats to lace her shoes back on. “Thank you,” she replies, and her tone is more formal than she would like.

The walk back to Polis is silent, and Clarke retreats into herself. Being around Lexa is exhausting, like emotional whiplash, and she finds herself longing for the black-and-white nature of things before they’d kissed for the first time, back when she was so consumed with showing her own strength and worthiness that she’d convinced herself she was unbreakable.

The touch of Lexa’s lips to hers had sparked a longing deep within her gut that made the betrayal at the base of Mount Weather even more agonizing. Because it really _wasn’t_ personal, but how could she feel it as anything else?

She doesn’t realize her heart is racing until Lexa turns to look at her with an expression of faint concern. “Are you all right, Clarke?”

Clarke’s breathing is fast and shallow, and as she pants she realizes she’s beginning to feel light-headed. She doesn’t respond, and Lexa stops her with a hand to her shoulder before steering her to sit on a nearby rock. “Put your head between your legs,” Lexa says firmly, her voice close to her ear, and Clarke obeys even as the world feels like it’s pulling away from her.

“Deep breaths.” Lexa’s voice edges into her fuzzy thoughts again, and Clarke feels her lungs expand to match Lexa’s slow, vocal inhale and exhale. After a minute or so of this her mind begins to clear, and the tingling panic that had filled her extremities like pins and needles begins to drain away, leaving a thick exhaustion in its place.

“I’ll send for Nyko,” she hears Lexa say, and she’s too tired to argue.

After a few minutes, Nyko arrives at a run, and Clarke allows herself to be helped like a drunkard back to her room in the medical compound. He helps her onto her bed and offers her water, then a syrup that smells like poppies, which Clarke declines.

“I don’t need to be sedated, Nyko,” she snaps, and his lips thin, but he obeys.

There is a knock at her door, and Clarke turns, expecting Lexa, but sees Oma, her guard from earlier.

“The Commander apologies for leaving you when you’re feeling unwell, but she had other matters that required her attention,” Oma says, touching her brow respectfully. “She sends her well-wishes and expects she will see you again soon.”

Nyko steps out into the hallway to chat with Oma, and Clarke sinks back into her furs, feeling an odd, heavy emptiness that haunts her until she finally falls into sleep.


End file.
